Plot danger and beasties!

So i'm starting to feel that i've gone from making my story bigger to making a different story all together. It seems to be a thin line between the two.

In other news, filling out my beastiary and i'm at like 20 races? i need more, more i tell you!!!

k laterz!

Some ametuurish art for "Seeds of Prophesy"

Here's a picture of Reginald. It's not super great, but yeah. ^_^

Here's the original.

Here's the edited version.

Free Fiction Tuesdays: Heart Of Stone (Part 3)

Still go writers block on "Seeds of War" so this week I'm bringing you another installment of "Heart Of Stone". For those of you who don't know this is the book I started for 2012 NaNoWriMo and a very special thank you goes out to AnAutumnRose for bringing the event to my attention. Thanks, Love! Anywasy here's some more "Heart of Stone"!

Euryale did not know what response she had expected from the two women, but the screaming match that had then ensued had most definitely not been it. After what seemed like ages, the two women had come to the conclusion that it was not each other they should be mad at and had summoned the whole of the sisterhood together in the great Oracle chamber deep within the temple and revealed the travesty that had occurred. Unrest had moved through the gathered women like a wave coming to the shore and the screaming it seemed was set to resound through the country side much as it had resounded through the chamber in which Euryale had asked her seemingly simple question in the presence of the High Priestess and the Oracle. Before it got out of control, however, the High Priestess called for silence and with her support the Oracle described a solution. All within the sisterhood would take a vow of celibacy forgoing pleasure in order to focus on their higher calling. By the time the decree had settled into all the sisters minds, relief was almost palatable in the air. Sadly, it was not to last for not even a fortnight passed before Apollo appeared within the temple courtyard in a flash of light and a wave of heat. All gathered could see that Apollo was furious. When the High Priestess appeared with the Oracle in tow, to politely inquire as to what help they could provide to him in easing his anger, they were loudly informed that “They” were the cause of his anger. That he had come to the women of the sisterhood as he had for time incalculable and been turned away with none of his usual comforts. He had approached many of the sisters, in many, different guises, and not one had lain with him as was his right. To this the High Priestess informed him that the Sisterhood of the Oracle of Pythia was not in fact required to provide those types of services to any being, be they God or man or anything in between. That the temple, and all who dwelled within, were the sole purview of the Fates themselves and were not to be used as anyone’s personal harem. That they were sorry he was upset, but that they were only thankful that his deception had finally been revealed to them.

Euryale felt her face pinch up at the memory of what had followed even as the mass of lizards that made up her hair, sensing her distress, began to make soothing noises. Sighing softly to herself she crooned back to them softly before once more reliving those moments within her mind’s eye.

At hearing the word revealed, all of the anger that Apollo had been displaying and the courtyard grew eerily silent.

“And how is it that I a god have come to be revealed unto thee, Priestess?” Apollo had quietly asked as his gaze roved the amassed crowd a strange gleam having replaced the anger in his eyes.

No sooner had the High Priestess and the Oracle called Euryale forward and told of the part she had played in thwarting Apollo’s deception, then had Apollo turned his banked fury upon Euryale herself.

Unable to kill her, as the High Priestess had said all who resided in the temple were under the protection of the Fates themselves, and he would have surely done so if he could have. Instead, Apollo had chosen to Curse her. His terrible screeching frightening to those who heard it.

“ YOU! YOU HAVE TAKEN SOMETHING FROM ME WHICH I VALUED ABOVE ALL OTHERS AND IN DOING SO YOU NOT ONLY SHALL YOU BE PUNISHED, BUT YOU SHALL KNOW MY LOSS AS WELL!” He bellowed. Taking a deep breath and throwing out his arms in her direction, Euryale found herself alone facing an angry gods wrath quaking in fear and abandoned on the steps leading in to the temple proper and all within the Sisterhood watch in horror as Apollo decreed her fate.

“ I WHO AM A GOD ABOVE MEN SO SHALL YOU BE PLACED ABOVE WOMEN, CHANGED AT A BASIC LEVEL TO REFLECT THE LIGHT IN WHICH I PERCIEVE YOU IN THIS MOMENT. YOU VILE SNAKE OF A WOMAN. “

The change had started immediately. She had fallen as her legs began to move of their own accord. It had been painful, but not as painful as watching them fuse together into the form they now held. Her scalp had begun to burn, and reaching up to feel what was wrong she had found masses of scaly flesh pushing themselves from her skull. She had screamed then, screamed until Apollo had called her to silence, before continuing to curse her.

“AS I CAN NO LONGER HIDE MY TRUE NATURE FROM THOSE I ONCE SAUGHT OUT SO TOO SHALL YOU BE UNABLE TO HIDE YOUR NEW NATURE FROM THOSE WHOM YOU WOULD SEEK OUT. FOR ALL THOSE WHO LOOK UPON YOUR VISAGE SHALL BE TRANSPARENT BEFORE YOUR GAZE AS WAS I.”

At those words Euryale had turned in confusion to look upon the High Priestess, who had come to crouch beside her on the warm stones, and that look of confusion had turned to one of horror as the High Priestess herself began to turn into glass. It had started with her eyes and quickly spread to every part of her body. Fearing for the gathered sisters she had quickly covered her face as best she could, placing her face into her no longer temple white stola. As her new body shook and heaved with sobs of sorrow, she vaguely realized that Apollo was still cursing her.

“LASTLY, KNOW THAT I WILL NEVER LOOK UPON YOU WITH BENEVOLENCE AGAIN NOR WILL ANY ASPECT OF MY STATION. SIGHT YOU MAY HAVE, BUT THE FATE OF YOURSELF AND ANYONE WHOM YOU SHOULD EVER LOVE WILL BE HIDDEN FROM YOU.” Apollo snarled at her.

“AND SHOULD YOU FIND YOURSELF, EVER, BENEATH THE SUN. YOU. SHALL. BURN!”

And burn she had as she had struggled to push herself and as much of her new form back into the temple proper and out of direct sunlight, patches of her skin blistering scraping off onto the paving. Apollo’s malicious laughter had followed her into the artificial light cast by torches and fires within the temple, even as he had vanished and the oracle had rushed to her aid, being careful to keep her face turned aside so that she would not fall under the power of Euryale’s new visage, she quickly grabbed a light tapestry and placed it over Euryale’s face.

“We will help you, Sister, as best we can for we have brought this curse upon you.” The Oracle had whispered to her before a few of the larger sisters had carried her into a darkened room in the caverns below the temple. There she had discovered herself anew as the sisters, protected by the ever present darkness, had treated the wounds the sun had left on her flesh. Even as she regained her strength hidden beneath the temple, she could still see Him. Apollo. In his rage he had knowingly, or perhaps unknowingly, cursed her to be placed above women, even as he was a god above men, and the power of her sight had grown to a level often times reserved for the Fates themselves.

In the few months she spent under the temple healing she watched Him. Him, with his pettiness and his temper. She saw the happiness and sorrow he felt as he traveled answering the prayers of those in need that he could, and she hated him for destroying who she had been and then moving on without remorse.

Eventually though in her solitude she thought to put her visions to the task of finding a companion or companions who would not be transformed by her curse. Her visions had shown her Stheno, with her strength, and Medusa, with her tears, and although she hadn’t known their names at the time she had covered herself as best she could and gathered what food could be spared and saying goodbye to the sisters and the oracle had disappeared into the night. She had followed her vision for a few weeks, hiding in caves or even burying herself in the ground as best she could and still be able to breath during the day in order to avoid the painful light of the sun, before she had found Stheno in a cave by the sea.

Glancing again at her sister, striking with the dark scaled bodies of her snakes blending seamlessly with her similarly dark hair, their red faces like roses moving against the dark curtain of it, their blue bellies flashing as they turned this way and that. Always watchful, always on her guard, that was Stheno.

She had in fact attacked Euryale when they had first met in that sea side cave. After Euryale had explained her situation and also her visions, Stheno had grudgingly joined her in her quest for companionship. Eventually they had even begun calling each other sisters, and Euryale had felt that they had develop as strong a bond as any during the travels that had subsequently led them to Medusa.

Turning her head once more a short look showed, Euryale that Medusa was still crying, so with another sigh, she turned her attention back to Stheno.

They had found Medusa and together they had traveled many months to come here to this out of the way place far from the sea, but Medusa still had these episodes. Each time an episode occurred Euryale wondered if Medusa would ever truly be free of her past, and embrace her new life with them, or if she would fall into madness. But she could not see what would be for now she loved Medusa as much as she loved Stheno.

“Do you think it will be asss bad thisss time as it has been the othersss, Ssstheno?”

Leaning slightly towards Stheno, Euryale felt no need to expand upon her question as Stheno would know what she was truly asking, as she had known every time Euryale had asked, every time this had happened after the first time.

It took a moment for the response to come and when it did Euryale could barely hear the words, Stheno’s low gravelly voice barely more than a growl as she answered, moving gently to wrap her arms around Euryale, before speaking into her hair.

“They are only tearsss. It could always be worssse.”

There you have it in all it's unedited goodness. I've done part of the next part, but it's long and complicated and i stopped in the middle. >_< Hopefully I'll have something to post next week. 

Kay buh bye!

Free Fiction Tuesdays: Heart Of Stone (Part 2)

I didn't get around to writing this weeks installment of "Seeds of War" so I'm gonna post a continuation of my "Heart Of Stone" prologue. It's rather short If you'd like to read the part that precedes this one, click the tags for free fiction or heart of stone. Thanks, and i hope you enjoy it.

“Sssissster?” said Euryale,  extending her hand  towards Medusa only to pause and then draw it back to follow its twin as she wrapped her arms around herself. Holding herself gently she rocked herself to and fro in frustration. These sisters of hers, so different from herself, left him nothing but confused.

“ Well, we have not always been sisters…”

Memories followed that train of thought, Euryale, again recalling the trials of her own life. Being born to a small tribe of nomads traveling far to the East, the childhood spent helping her tribesmen and learning to become a woman. Perhaps even one day, as she had been told often enough, head wife of the tribe leader. 

“A woman that I’ll never be, now.”

Now that thought touched a place deep within Euryale’s soul, a place that hated a world that had made her suffer so. That ached with the grief for a life that she could never have and could never go back to. Still, looking down upon what she had become, she hated herself more. This body was not so different from the one she had been born into. In some ways it was even the same as the one she had always known, but where she had once had legs, with which to dance and celebrate with her people, she now could not dance as she once had and had no legs… and most importantly no people.

“Well, that’s not entirely true.” She thought, “I have Stheno and Medusa. Sisters in our struggles, if not in blood. Why should I care that my legs are now bound into a column of molted brown, pink, and chalk white colored flesh and covered in translucent scales? That my hair, so similar to that of my once loving mother now shares its place upon my head with snake like lizards? That I can no longer go out into the sun because it sears my flesh with His wrath? At least I am alive and not alone, and it is not my fault, it is His.”

For though she had been the one to reveal that she had been born with what her people called The Sight, and that the revelation had led to her being sent to the oracles at Pythia to perhaps one day join they’re sacred sister hood. It had not been her fault that Apollo, god of the sun, had been consorting with the all of the priestesses in residence at the sacred temple under different guises. Finding it strange that none of the sisterhood had mentioned it to her that their patron god often came to call upon them in one form or another, she had naively approached the High Priestess and Oracle of the temple and asked simply if she would also be required to provide services of a carnal nature for the god when it appeared to her that so many of the other sisters, including the High Priestess and the Oracle where already providing them.

She made a soft chuffing sound before she could stop herself earning her a sharp look from Stheno, which she avoided by meticulously smoothing down her dark brown stola, and patting her soft brown hair, before once more wrapping her arms around herself.

 

“That did not work out the way I thought it would.” She thought to herself.

~*~

This is only about a third of Euryale's part, but i thought i'd end it here this week so you're not overwhelmed. This story was my first attempt at writing in one sitting scenes. Let me know what you think! ^_^

 

Free Fiction Tuesday: Seeds of Prophecy (Part 4)

“What do you thinks wrong with him, Toby?” said Phiobe, from where she sat watching Ubrin investigate the open space between the house and the wall separating the foreign dorms from the rest of the campus.

“I don’t know, Phi. He did seem rather off though, and don’t think I didn’t notice the way Ubrin was sniffing at him.” Toby replied, continuing to place his belongings in order within the first floor room that Phiobe hadn’t clamed for herself.

Tobias and Phiobe had arrived at the house shortly after the midday bell to find their belongings had already arrived and been placed in the first floors living area.  The living area was modestly furnished in neutral tones of white and beige, and took up most of the first floor. Further inspection had revealed a small sink and cooking prep area to the left of the main entrance as well as two large rooms with adjoining bathrooms along the back part of the floor. Having taken that in Reginald had shown the siblings to the second floor by way of a set of discrete stairs. The second floor was much like the first except where the first floor had only had two rooms the second had four, split into pairs with a bathroom set between them and each having access to the large balcony which spanned the back of the house.

The house itself did not appear to have hosted residents for quite some time though it had, as Reginald had explained, been cleaned in preparation for the siblings arrival.

The reason for the lack of other residents, Reginald had also explained was that although the group of two story homes that sat in a circle surrounding the open courtyard area were available exclusively for use by all foreign students, because of the other options available to such students often the six buildings went without residents.

Shortly before arriving at what would be their new home for the length of their stay at TUAMA, Reginald had pointed out one of those options. Across from the Foreign Students dorms were a row of dorms dedicated to different campus groups. Slightly bigger in size then the foreign students dorm houses, these Group homes served the housing needs of particular members of the student body.  Reginald had explained, though he hadn’t pointed out specific buildings, that certain abilities caused tension within other dorms or were simply easier on all involved when housed separately from the general population of students.

For example, he had said, persons with natural or cultivated ensorcellment abilities often chose to be housed in the group dorm dedicated to those with that particular ability since they were often treated with distrust by other students. While those with strong precognitive or empathic abilities where often invited to join the NUCOGPATH house since it had been found that certain types of Nulls helped temper the side effects of those gifts.

Faculty homes were placed along the opposite side of the paving hosted the Group homes eventually ending at the Headmistress’s home itself. While this path branched off from the one ending in the foreign homes, it started at the schools gates and ran solidly across the campus connecting the many separate buildings.

The campus tour had begun with that first step out of the Administrative building which, while Toby had thought of the Administrative Building as being a singular structure, Reginald had revealed, was actually part of what the school referred to as The Quad. The square structure was actually four buildings surrounding an open courtyard that had been built into each other. The corner the siblings had been in was the Administrative Building, which also housed business classes on it’s second floor, while the corner above it housed the student infirmary and the medical arts classes. Next to the Administrative building’s corner was the Library and Language spellcraft arts buildings corner leaving the that corner to house the student cafeteria with general education classes held on it’s second floor.

It had almost been time for the midday meal when Tobias and Phiobe had finished speaking with Headmistress Imsenko, so Reginald had offered to start their tour at the cafeteria and answer any questions they might have.

~*~

(to be continued)